Ajazdin Nuhi

Ajazdin Nuhi was a Serbian professional footballer who played as a right back and defensive midfielder for more than a decade and a half in the top divisions of Serbia, Montenegro and Poland. Remembered for a combative, relentless style and sharp tactical awareness, he won the national championship of FR Yugoslavia with Partizan in 2001-02 and, exactly ten years later by the reckoning of the Serbian press, the Montenegrin First League with Mogren in 2010-11. Across his career he made 336 league appearances and scored 25 goals.

Nuhi was born on 10 October 1979 in Dragaš (Dragash), in what was then the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo within Yugoslavia. He began his senior career in 1997 at FK Čukarički on Banovo Brdo in Belgrade, where he made more than 50 appearances. Novosti described the young player there as relentless, combative and tactically very literate, and his form caught the eye of Partizan, who were looking for reinforcements in his position.

He joined Partizan in the summer of 2001 and stayed for three seasons. In his first season, under coach Ljubiša Tumbaković, Partizan won the First League of FR Yugoslavia comfortably, finishing on 81 points, 15 ahead of Red Star and 23 ahead of third-placed Sartid. Nuhi was part of a squad that included Saša Ilić, Igor Duljaj, Zvonimir Vukić, Ivica Iliev, Vladimir Ivić and Danko Lazović. When fans voted for the club's best player at the end of 2002, he finished seventh. In all he played 29 matches for Partizan, including European games, most memorably the 2002 UEFA Cup tie against Sporting CP, the Lisbon side of a teenage Cristiano Ronaldo.

During his Partizan years he went out on loan twice. In 2003 he spent half a season at Legia Warsaw, then coached by fellow Serb Dragomir Okuka, where he made 10 Ekstraklasa appearances between March and May. Polish outlet Przegląd Sportowy recalled that Legia had predicted the technically gifted Serb could become a star not only of the club but of the whole league, though his stay proved short. He was then loaned to Sartid Smederevo for the rest of the 2003-04 season.

In 2004 he moved to Montenegrin side Zeta of Golubovci, playing the last two seasons of the joint league of Serbia and Montenegro. From 2006 to 2009 he played three seasons for OFK Beograd in a squad that, in hindsight, looks star-studded: his teammates included Aleksandar Kolarov, Nenad Lalatović and Dalibor Veselinović. Between 2009 and 2011 he played for Mogren of Budva, and in 2010-11 Igor Matić's side finished level with Budućnost Podgorica on 73 points but took the Montenegrin title.

He later played for Napredak Kruševac and BSK Borča before finishing his career at Kolubara of Lazarevac. Partizan's statement and Wikipedia date his retirement to 2013, while several Serbian and Montenegrin outlets give 2014. After his playing days, according to Mondo and Srpske Novine, he held several jobs connected to football.

Nuhi was capped once for FR Yugoslavia at under-21 level in 2001, according to Wikipedia and Sportska centrala. Mondo reported instead that he played for the senior national team on 27 March 2001 in Dravograd against Slovenia, coming on in the 48th minute in a 2-1 win. Srpske Novine noted that the two versions conflict.

Ajazdin Nuhi died on 10 September 2026 at his family home in Borča, Belgrade, at the age of 46. Serbian media reported that he had taken his own life; at the time of the first reports the authorities had not officially confirmed the circumstances. Partizan, Čukarički, the Super liga and Prva liga of Serbia, and the players' union SPF Nezavisnost all published tributes. Partizan said it was saying goodbye with great sadness to a former player who had been part of the generation that won the 2002 title.

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